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Your opinions: Letters to the editor for Jan. 28

Lebanon Daily News

Updated:
01/27/2014 04:44:28 PM EST

Climate can't afford our apathy

Editor:

Kudos for devoting a recent column to climate change.

Imagine you ate the same quantity and selection of food every day, staying at a stable weight and health. Then new stress at work meant, in addition to what you had been eating, you added one candy bar per day but you added no extra exercise. One extra candy bar doesn't seem like a big change, but it would amount to 1.5 pounds weight gain in a month.

No reason for alarm. After a year, it would be 18 pounds. After 20 years? Alarmed?

At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, humans started adding extra CO2 to the atmosphere. The planet had been on a stable CO2 diet. The planet had no way to use extra CO2, so it started accumulating in the atmosphere. Mid-twentieth century, fossil fuel use accelerated and daily CO2 emissions soared.

We learn: humans can profoundly affect this big, magnificent planet, even though we are small, insignificant creatures.

As for 134-year temperature record not seeming statistically relevant, climate scientists have determined historical temperatures based on tree-growth patterns, ice samples and other techniques. They can reconstruct average temperatures going back about 1,000 years. Their work shows that, while temperatures varied in the past, they moved slowly. In the case of our current warming period, average temperatures have risen dramatically in a short time period, increasing as atmospheric CO2 increased.

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You mentioned constitutional laws and Bill of Rights. The laws of physics and chemistry unequivocally indicate the planet is warming due to CO2 emissions. The warming is causing strange weather, which is sometimes dangerous, and always weird, giving us both too little water and too much water.

These laws also indicate CO2 emitted in any year warms the planet for about 50 years. This should make you feel uneasy. With certainty, we will witness food and water shortages, refugees, wars, and new illnesses.

Environmentalists and scientists are not hysterical. We are frustrated. We know technology certainly exists to solve climate change and power our lives, but Americans are apathetic. Your column encouraged apathy. With certainty we know apathy is one of the seven deadly sins.

I encourage you and your readers to investigate Citizens Climate Lobby, a volunteer organization lobbying for legislation to stabilize the climate, while helping members avoid feeling fragility and despair.

Rabbi Judy Weiss, Brookline, Mass.

Temperature stats have significance

Editor:

Rahn Forney's recent observation about the utility of the December temperature data is reasonable.

However, when one considers that we are in the early stages of a 50,000-year cooling period, one of eight during the last 800,000 years, the rapid rise in global temperature should be a cause for concern.

Global temperature has risen 0.84 degrees C during the last four decades.

The change is statistically significant. Given the variability of the temperature data, the probability of error in stating that the difference is statistically significant is less than 1 in 100.

Prediction of the results of a coin flip has a 1-in-2 probability of error.

Russ Brown, Idaho Falls, Idaho

Misplaced attack made writer's point

Editor:

Rumor has it that Fred Goudy once taught school. If true, his classroom time taught him nothing about logic or critical thinking.

Goudy recently sent a letter to you to complain about an article that only appeared in a Harrisburg paper. Unless he acted on some sort of grudge, that decision makes as much sense as the content of Goudy's unpleasant, somewhat confused and confusing letter.

I read the article he didn't like, but it wasn't clear that he did. The article merely defended the constitutional right of a simple, Christian man to publicly express his faith-based opinions without having to endure punitive, irrational, intolerant personal attacks from anti-Christian, liberal bigots.

Goudy's attack letter artlessly underscored the point of the article he criticized.

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